


Someone’s Waiting For You

by IShipThem



Series: Pedro, the Queen's Guard [2]
Category: Sister Claire (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 14:00:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5007454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IShipThem/pseuds/IShipThem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title from the The Rescuers. That should tell you something about this fic.</p><p>In which Pedro comes home after meeting the Bright One, and we get a glimpse into his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone’s Waiting For You

He comes home at the end of the day, unreasonably tired for a shift that’s been all around peaceful, and yet not entirely sure he should’ve left. Important events are always dangerous; when there’s too many people in the streets, it’s easier to pass unnoticed. Pedro’s all too aware of it. And Queen Sylvia’s not… well… not as well as she could’ve been.

It’s the thought of Luiza that brings him back ultimately. Havens know she must be driving Maurice up the walls asking when will daddy be home. Pedro won’t lie and say it isn’t flattering, no matter that’s got less to do with him and a lot more to do with a certain red-haired visitant.

All in all he should get home before Luiza comes storming the castle.

Sure as that, he’s barely done opening the door and she’s already spotted him. “ _Daddy’s home!”_ she screams, and comes flying into the living room like a canon bullet, colliding against Pedro’s stomach head-first. He wheezes, the air squeezed right out of him. Stars have mercy, he swears she’s gaining more momentum every passing week!

“Did you see her, daddy?!” Luiza demands all in one breath. “Did you meet her? _Did you?_  Did she really have horns?!”

“Easy there, tip tot,” Pedro says, or tries his best to. “You’re gonna knock daddy over one of those days!”

“But did you  _meet her_ , daddy?” Luiza insists, bursting with excitement, arms still glued around his waist. “Did you, did you? Did you meet the Bright One?!”

Pedro laughs, maneuvering until he’s managed to step inside and close the door. “Why don’t I tell you in the kitchen, so papa doesn’t have to listen behind doors? Yeah? Come here, filhota.” He bends down, fits an arm around her knees and hoists her up. She yelps with delight and then starts giggling. Her little feet kick the air.

His baby girl’s getting heavier every day, and Pedro’s once again happy he’s never slacked on his training. It is a sad day on a father’s life when his daughter gets too big for piggyback. 

Fitting on his hip, Luiza twists towards the kitchen as Pedro takes off his shoes. “Papa, daddy’s back!” she screams again. A charmed laughter answers her. Then Maurice is coming through the door with his sleeves rolled up, bringing with him the smell of spices and meat and rice and greens. Pedro’s stomach grumbles.

“I can see that,” he says, smiling all warm at them. “Give way for the smooch,” he adds, and Luiza covers her face with her hands, giggling as Maurice kisses Pedro welcome. “Hello, handsome. Do you come bearing gifts?”

“I do, indeed,” Pedro agrees. He smiles, besotted, and bends down to steal another kiss. Then a third for good measure. “How was your day, sweetheart?”

“DADDY!” Luiza complains, tugging at the fabric of his shirt. “Tell me about the Bright One first!”

Sharing a fond look with Pedro, Maurice plucks Luiza from his arms, kissing her grumpy cheeks. “Manners, Lulu. Why don’t you go help daddy set the table?”

“While he tells me about the Bright One,” Luiza replies, and she’s so obstinate they can’t deny her. Grabbing Pedro’s hand, she tugs him to the kitchen, claiming his attention all to herself. “Daddy, daddy, did she really fly in that  _huge bird?_  I saw it! I did! We were all at the patio and no one wanted to come in ‘cause we were all waiting for her and then, and then—” She drags him towards the cupboards, talking faster than she can breathe. “And then it went flying right  _over our heads!_  Woosh! It was so huge, the shadow covered the whole patio! No, the whole school! The whole  _city!”_

She gives him a second to be properly awed, then barrels on. “The nuns all kept telling us to get in line, but no one wanted to go in. Jean tried to climb the wall to see it better, but he fell over and his pants ripped! In his  _butt!_  And then, and then, Mother Mary Sophie asked us if we’d never seen a bird before in our lives, and Mia! Mia told her ‘None so stinkin’ huge, Mother!’ and she was  _furious!”_

Pedro laughs heartily at the image. “And then what happened?”

Luiza accepts the plates he’s handing her, and says: “We thought she was gonna put her in the Thinking Corner, but then Sister Genevieve started laughing, and Mother Mary forgot all about Mia.” She puts the plates down on the table, fixing the cutlery with the refined care her papa taught her. “Daddy, did she  _really_  fly in that bird?”

“She did, tip tot, she really did,” Pedro says, passing Maurice the serving platters. “But you wanna know what’s even cooler?”

“What is?” Luiza asks, breathless, hugging a juice pitcher to her chest.

“That bird of hers?” he says, pausing for effect, then lowers his voice to tell her: “It _talked.”_

Luiza gasps so hard her shoulders rise up to her ears. “It  _talked?_  What? What did it talked? What did it  _say?”_

“It said ‘Give me a shout if you need me, fidget,’ and then it took off flying,” Pedro says. Luiza’s eyes are wide as saucers. “It was talking to the Bright One.”

“She can  _talk to birds?”_ Luiza whispers, clutching the pitcher so tight her knuckles pale. “That’s  _amazing.”_

Pedro carefully pries the pitcher from her fingers. “I’m not so sure it  _was_  a bird,” he says. “I figure, if they could talk, they ought to be as smart as you and I. Maybe it was not a bird at all.”

“Didn’t you once say there was a bird in your land that could talk?” Maurice asks, finishing serving, then rolling down his sleeves. Pedro pulls his chair for him.

“Well, yes,” he says. “But that was different.”

Not that papagaios weren’t extremely smart birds – the one he’d had as a child certainly had been – but they didn’t speak to you the way her companion had. Not like a concerned sibling. Not quite like a human being. That bird had been… something more.

Impatient, Luiza tugs hard at his sleeve.

“And then what, Daddy?” she demands. “And then what happened? Did she have horns? Did she? Did she have hair made of  _fire?”_

Laughing his wonderful, beautiful laughter, Maurice catches Luiza under her arms and sits her at the table. She calms long enough for prayers, but the rest of dinner is a loss. Much too busy asking Pedro questions, Luiza only manages to shove half her food in her mouth; the rest of it is left in her plate as she listens to his tales entranced, fork hanging forgotten in mid-air.

“She has _curly_ hair?” she says, beaming like Pedro’s just told her they’ll have ice cream for dinner. “Really?  _Really?_  Daddy – daddy, do you think it looks like mine?"

Pedro hesitates. “Hm,” he says. “Well, her curls are a tad bigger than yours, Lulu.”

That hardly seems to bother her. “But she’s got curls?” she confirms, then grins wide from ear to ear. “Papa, papa, did you hear? The Bright One has hair like _mine!”_

All night long there’s no stopping her. She bombards Pedro with questions through the dishes and during bath, and up to the moment he puts her to bed. Even then, she doesn’t want to go to sleep. “Daddy,” she says, bolting upright for the fifteenth time. “Daddy, what was she  _wearing?”_

By this point, Pedro’s slightly dismaying of ever putting her to sleep, and Maurice is no help. He’s laughing too hard to do any parenting. Racking his brain for a way to negotiate this, Pedro realizes he’s forgotten something of the  _ultimate importance._

“All right, tip tot,” he says, sitting down next to her. “Now it’s really time for bed.”

“But—” Luiza starts, and he puts a placating hand on her head.

“Daddy’s actually brought you a special gift,” he says. “How about I give it to you, and then I can tell you a bedtime story, and you can ask me more about the Bright One tomorrow?”

Luiza considers this, her little face scrunched up in concentration. Then, slightly suspicious, she asks: “Is it really special?”

“Very, very special,” Pedro says. Luiza seems placated. She burrows down on her bed, pulls the blankets up to her chins, then looks at him expectantly.

She really is the cutest thing Pedro’s ever seen. Every day now she looks more like Maurice, from the brown of her skin to the shape of her nose to their twin mischievous smiles. But every now and then Pedro catches himself in her face. And her hair, all the little thousand ringlets that cascade down, are the precise image of his mother.

Bending down, he smooches a kiss against her cheek. Maurice comes in to say goodnight, kneels down next to her bed, and holds her hand between his. They touch foreheads, murmuring their nighttime prayers. Pedro remembers his mother doing the same with him. Different words, different languages, but to him it feels so very much the same.

He goes to the living room and fetches the little glass case the King’s gardener had borrowed him. She’d caught up to him on his way out, and fawned and awed over the Bright One’s gift and didn’t let him take a single step more before she’d properly protected it. And it was good that she did. Luiza would cry for days if the poor thing wilted.

Maurice doesn’t know about the flower, so he lingers on the doorway. He has a look about him, as if he’s asking his husband what is he up to now, and it makes Pedro want to kiss him breathless. He doesn’t. If he kisses Maurice breathless every time he wants to, he’ll never leave the house

“What’s it, daddy?” Luiza asks, trying to see what he’s hiding behind his back. She kneels on the bed, swaying right and left. “What is it? I wanna see!”

Pedro laughs, keeping the flower safely concealed. “This,” he says. “Is a very special gift that a very special someone told me to give to you.”

Luiza’s eyes are wide with expectative. With a flourish, Pedro produces the little glass box.

She gives a quiet sort of gasp, her face filling with wonder. Her gaze’s fixed on the red flower as if it’s the world’s most precious treasure. Almost shyly, she reaches for it.

Pedro hands it to her. His little girl holds it with more care than he’s ever seen her do, cradling the box in her palms. She brings it close to her face. Her thumb brushes its glass with the softest touch.

“The Bright One?” she whispers, looking up at Pedro. “The Bright One gave me this?”

A bit surprised by her reverent reaction, Pedro sits down next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Yes,” he says. “She did.”

Luiza’s still looking at the flower as if it’s glowing, slowly turning the glass case in her fingers. “Where did it come from?” she asks.

Pedro shares a look with Maurice, but his husband looks just as surprised as him. Both of them would’ve expected more jumping on the bed and screaming – and less solemnity overall. But Maurice only shrugs. Children are always surprising you.

 Pedro turns back to Luiza. “Well…” he says. “I told her that you’d be disappointed her hair wasn’t made of actual fire. So she closed her eyes,” he brushes his fingers over Luiza’s eyes, and she smiles, obligingly closing them. “And concentrated real hard.”

Luiza’s face scrunches up, her little noise wrinkling, eyebrows knotting together. Pedro cups his hands around hers. “And then, from every tip of her horn,” he says, “a dozen flower bloomed like a rose bush!”

Luiza gasps, her eyes flying open. She twists around to look at him. “She made flowers grow from her horns?!” she asks, voice a hushed, vibrant whisper. Pedro laughs and scrunches his nose against hers.

“She  _did!_ And what’s more, she reached up,” he mimics the action, plucking a flower from the air, “took one of them in her hands and handed it to me. And then she said, word by word…” He pauses, to create tension. “‘For Luiza. Please tell her I said hello’.”

And Luiza, well – Luiza looks at him as if he’s just given her the most precious and rare jewel in the Royal Treasure. Breathless, she turns back to the flower and beams down at it, bringing it up to her cheek. “Daddy?” she whispers, soft.

“Yes?”

Then, like she’s telling a secret: “Tell her I said ‘Thank you’?”

Pedro squeezes her in the tightest hug. “Of course I’ll, tip tot,” he says, and Luiza laughs, cozying up to him. He kisses her brow. Discreetly, Maurice steps out, leaving the door nearly closed in his wake. “Now. Do you want a bedtime story?”

Leaning against his chest, Luiza pulls up the covers and nods. Pedro smooths her hair. “Which one do you want?”

She considers it, cradling the flower to her chest, eyelids beginning to drop closed. Then, switching to their shared tongue, she says: “Tell me about Gran’ma Luiza and Gran’pa Francisco.”

“A vovó e o vovô?” he confirms, and she nods drowsily. “What do you want to know?”

Luiza yawns. “Anything.”

Well, that isn’t a broad request at all, Pedro thinks. But that’s fine. There’s plenty to tell her about his mom and dad.

The image that comes first to him is the one he knows best. His mom. The way he remembers her from his first house, over the ocean, in the dry earth and merciless sun of his homeland.

They lived in a little house of only one room. To a corner they put Pedro’s hammock, and their parent’s straw mat. The other corner hosted the kitchen. Bathroom was outside.

When Pedro recalls her, he can almost feel the hammock swaying beneath him, the straw between his fingers as he waves baskets. The sun outside is blazing as always. But inside, there’s shade; the only window is behind his mother, framing her thin, bony silhouette as she fiddles with the firewood. Rice, beans, and  _farofa._ He can hear her:  _“As águas de São Francisco passavam por riba da ponte…”_

Pedro smiles. She smiles back at him, kinky black hair under her bandana, same skirt and blouse she wore yesterday. His dad is outside, working the earth. Not much survives when the rains don’t come, but it’s still enough that they don’t need to leave the village. They have before. They probably will again. But so far they’ve always managed to come back.

Pedro goes back to waving his basket, but she comes over and plucks it from his hands. “Go play outside,” she tells him. He wants to protest. They sell the baskets at the next town, and exchange the money for things they can’t grow. But she won’t hear of it! “Óia, menino!” she says. “Work is no place for children. Go play outside.”

He goes. There’s nothing much to do outside, but he and his friends have never let that stop them. They run down the dried up river and pretend to magick all the water back.

His father laughs when he tells him about it that night. “Not even magick can make it rain, son!” he says. But there’s no meanness in it. Sitting next to him on the doorway, his father blows smoke rings and lets Pedro try his pipe. All it does is make him cough.

“ _Francisco!”_ his mother chides. She hurries over and taps Pedro’s back, fanning his face with her apron. “You’re gonna make the boy sick!”

“I’m  _fine,”_ Pedro insists. But he doesn’t try the pipe again.

His father cried the day they boarded the ship. They’d been out of home before, many, many times, but this one—

This one put an ocean between them and the little house by the dry river, and Pedro knew—

Even for them, an ocean was too big a distance to cross twice.

“Everything’s gonna work out, son,” her mother told him, her hand smoothing his hair. “We miss home, but being together is more important, right?”

“Dad?”

Pedro startles, jumping when he feels Luiza shift against his chest. He thought she’d fallen asleep already. “Yeah, filhota?”

For a long time she says nothing, long enough that Pedro mistakes her silence for sleep again. But just as he’s about to get up: “Why did Gran’ma and Gran’pa died?”

They were sick, is what Pedro should answer her. They both had a violent sort of sickness that killed them in under four days, when he was nine. Well, of course he wouldn’t tell her  _that._  But still, that’s the truth. They were sick.

But what comes out of his mouth is this:

“‘Cause they missed home.”

And that’s truer for the little boy who lost them; it’s still true for the man that grew up without them. His mom and dad were never meant to leave their little house. They’d been coming back to it following the rain for as long as they’d lived, and when they left him, Pedro knew, he  _knew_  they were dead, but all he could think about was…

…home.

And home was not here.

He stays very quiet, unmoving, still smoothing Luiza’s hair absently. Her eyes are closed, but he’s sure now she’s not asleep. “Why did you ask, Lulu?”

She yawns, curls her arms tighter around the flower. “Dunno,” she says. “What about you, daddy?”

“What about me?”

“Do you miss home?”

Pedro knows she means his homeland, but for a moment, he draws a blank. Home?

Home is the shadowy house in the blazing sun; home is fried  _mandioca_ and walking barefoot and going absolute  _batshit crazy_  when the rains came again. But home is…

Mom and dad.

He shifts, an arm still around Luiza’s shoulders, and lowers her to the bed. She curls up under her blankets and blinks blearily up at him. He’s not sure how to answer her. Does he miss it?

“I miss it somewhat,” he says, soft, kneeling down next to her bed. Luiza follows his motions with her eyes. He lays his cheek next to her face on the mattress. “But everyone I love is here now. Like you, and papa.”

Luiza smiles. “And grandmère and grandpère?”

“That’s right.”

“And Queen Sylvia and everyone from the Guard?”

Pedro laughs. Pinches her nose. “If you’re gonna start listing everyone I love, we’ll be here all night, tip tot.”

Luiza giggles, eyes falling close. Clutches her flower tight. “Daddy?” she says. “Do you think her horns hurt her?”

The change in subject is so abrupt, it takes Pedro forever to gather what she means. When he finally does, he thinks he hasn’t. “The Bright One?” he confirms. “It didn’t look like they did, Lulu. Why do you ask?”

“Dunno,” Luiza whispers. Before Pedro can think of anything else, she finally falls asleep, just like that. Out like a light.

Uneasy, he takes the flower out of her arms, and puts it safely in her nightstand. She doesn’t stir. Tucking the covers around her, he leans down to kiss her forehead – then leaves, turning off her light.

Maurice is waiting for him still, reading a book in bed. The title is entirely incomprehensible to Pedro, who’s only learned how to read as an adult, and finds it hard to this day.

Taking one look at his husband, Maurice marks his page and puts the book down. “Is everything okay?”

Pedro’s heart warms like a hot coal. He drags himself to bed, reaching out for Maurice. Wrapping his arms around his waist, he rests his head against his chest and sighs at the feel of his fingers in his hair. “Not quite.”

Maurice kisses his forehead, cradling him close. “What is it, darling?”

Wrapping himself around him as close as he can, Pedro closes his eyes. “Do you think Luiza was acting strange?”

Maurice runs his fingers through his hair. His thumb brushes Pedro’s cheek soothingly. “I don’t know about strange,” he says, throwing one leg around his hips. “Unusual, maybe. But children are always doing that. Why? Did she say something?”

“She asked…” Pedro stops, squeezing Maurice tighter. His husband shifts, lips pressed against his brow, holding him close. “She asked me about my parents.”

Maurice says nothing; but Pedro can tell, by his silence, that he’s gathering what’s the problem. “She does that often, though.”

“Yeah.”

Again there’s silence. Pedro puts his hands under Maurice’s shirt, splaying his palms against the hot skin in his back. Takes a deep breath. “It’s just…” Another breath. “They’ve been in my mind all day today, and… it’s like she knew. That it was bothering me, I mean.”

Maurice reaches over and turns off the lampshade’s light. “Maybe she did,” he says. “You know how perceptive she is.”

That  _is_ true, Pedro supposes. Luiza’s always been absurdly atoned to other people’s feelings. She becomes  _impossible_ to deal with when they are stressed, like she’s absorbing it right out of them. You can’t hide from her when you’re feeling down. And he’s never seen a child become hyper so fast when surrounded by other happy children. It’s impressive to see.

“Darling?” Maurice whispers in the dark, his voice velvet and warmth. “Why were you thinking about your parents today?”

Pedro buries his face in his chest. Maurice is the only person he can talk to about this; the only one who really  _knows._ He’s held him when Pedro couldn’t physically drag himself out of bed. He’s the only one who’s ever heard him talk about those four hellish days of his life. But it never gets easy. Not really.

Just easier.

“The Bright One, actually,” Pedro says. “She is… she’s tiny for her age, you know. Very tiny, if you’re not fooled by her horns. I think she's twelve, only… she looks like she's nine or ten, still.”

There’s a charged pause. And then:

“Oh,” Maurice breaths, a tiny, fragile hushed sound.

Pedro smiles sadly. “They’re huge, her horns. But they’re not really like horns, actually? They look more like antlers. I’ve no idea how she walks with them, let alone does everything else they say she can do.”

“Do you think she  _can_ do those things?” Maurice asks. His voice is very quiet. Sometimes, when he gets like this, not even Pedro can tell what he’s thinking.

He starts to answer, but before he does, the Bright One’s little face comes to his mind. Her small hand, all scarred up. The way she moved as if to run him through when she thought he was a threat to Queen Sylvia. Her smile at the mention of ice cream.

 “I think,” Pedro says into Maurice’s collarbone, careful, aware of how the words scratch at his chest on the way out. “That she shouldn’t have to.”

Maurice lets out a long, heavy breath. He knows. He knows better than anyone else. Pedro curls himself tighter inside his arms.

“But she’s here now,” Maurice whispers, equal parts hope and worry. “Maybe we can help her. The Queen and King—don’t you think they’ll try?”

Pedro nods. She’s not completely alone, he knows this. He knows of the Helsings that accompanied her to the city. And you can never tell by looking at a person just how many people hold them dear in their hearts.

But still Luiza’s sleepy voice comes to his mind –  _do you think her horns hurt her?_ – and he thinks of the little room at the back of the  _boulangerie,_ and of the first apartment him and Maurice shared, and the day they painted Luiza’s nursery.

And he hopes – just as much as he hopes Luiza never goes a single night without a good night kiss – that the Bright One has someone to call a family somewhere.

“Maurice?” he says, tilting his head back to look at his husband. Maurice meets his eyes.

“Yes?” he says.

“Thank you for marrying me.”

Maurice starts laughing, lowly, his wonderful, beautiful, perfect laugh. Pedro loves him so much he wants to kiss him until he can’t breathe. “I only married you for your good looks,” he says, but he’s laughing so much it loses all of its punch. “I love you too, Pedro.”

And that, Pedro thinks, settling back inside his arms, is all that he’ll ever need.


End file.
